6 Great Books for Dad

He has enough ties. He never uses the tools. How many Dwight Shrute bobbleheads can a guy really use? Here are six great books for dad, ranging from a contemplative memoir to a bone-chilling thriller. It’s not too late to run over to Books Inc., Green Apple, Book Passage, the Booksmith, Kepler’s, or Mrs Dalloway’s to get one!

An Italian business executive rescues a drowning woman, then returns home to discover that, while he was saving a stranger, his own wife suddenly died. Now he turns his attention to his 9-year-old daughter. As an international merger of his company is underway, he goes AWOL from work, instead committing himself to a simple and, in his mind, completely rational existence: standing in front of his daughter’s school, all day, every day.

Like the best long-form essays, Kayak Morning is deeply associative, meandering from subject to subject, from esoteric fact to watery remembrance. The book is shot through with meditations on water, solitude, Quogue, and kayaking, as well as surprising revelations (Rosenblatt interviewed several presidents; among them was Nixon, who remarked that Rosenblatt’s tape recorder was “better” than the old tape recorders). Kayak Morning, like Making Toast before it, draws its weight and its beauty, its utterly crystallized emotions and startling sensitivity, from grief. The death of Rosenblatt’s daughter is on every page.

Whether reflecting on his role as son, brother, husband, or father, Chabon’s delightful essays are provocative and insightful. This wide-ranging collection touches on everything from becoming a father to losing a father-in-law (through divorce); from musings on a quirky childhood to a discussion of what society considers to be a “good father” today. ~AudioFile

In the spirit of a little peace, love, and understanding, guys need to read this book, which focuses on which parts of the female brain fire during what activities, and on the effects of hormones like progesterone, testosterone, and oxytocin on behavior. Seasoned dads might want to skip ahead to the enlightening section on the teenage brain. New dads might be interested in Chapter 5, “Mommy Brain.” “Dopamine is jacked up in the mommy brain by estrogen and oxytocin,” Brizendine writes. “This is the same reward circuit set off in a woman’s brain by intimate communication and orgasm.” In other words, there’s a very good neurological reason that mothers tend to be preoccupied with their newborns: when a woman gives birth, and later when she nurses, or even when she simply holds her baby, she gets a serious dose of the body’s natural pleasure drugs. The withdrawal symptoms that women often experience when separated from their babies, Brizendine says, isn’t so much a psychological issue as it is “a neurochemical state.”

Gladwell, author and journalist, sets out to provide an understanding of success using outliers, men and women with skills, talent, and drive who do things out of the ordinary. He contends that we must look beyond the merits of a successful individual to understand his culture, where he comes from, his friends and family, and the community values he inherits and shares. ~Booklist

Bone-chilling :Arctic Chill, by Arnaldur Indridason
I’m completely addicted to this series of thrillers set in Reykjavik. Police detective Erlendur Sveinsson is a father and grandfather whose tenuous relationship with his grown children colors every aspect of his life. At the center of the story is the murder of a young boy, which the author employs as a commentary on modern Iceland. You’ll love these books for the mystery and keep coming back for the flawed, thoughtful, and deeply sympathetic main character.